Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

“Were floods of tears to be unloosed In tribute to my grief, The doves of Noah ne'er had roost Nor found an olive-leaf.”

“Prudence must not be expected from a man who is never sober.[Lat., Non est ab homine nunquam sobrio postulanda prudentia.]”

“There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.”

“No sober person dances.”

“A thankful heart is the greatest virtue.”

“What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?[Lat., Quod enim munus reiplicae afferre majus, meliusve possumus, quam si docemus atque erudimus juventutem?]”

“The eyes, like sentinels, hold the highest place in the body.[Lat., Oculi, tanquam, speculatores, altissimum locum obtinent.]”

“The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret -- that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.”

“Let the punishment be equal with the offence.[Lat., Noxiae poena par esto.]”

“The consciousness of good intention is the greatest solace of misfortunes.”

“What is so beneficial to the people as liberty, which we see not only to be greedily sought after by men, but also by beasts, and to be prepared in all things.”

“There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.”

“Without your knowledge, the eyes and ears of many will see and watch you, as they have done already.”

“"What greater gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth?"”

“Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen.”

“Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.”

“To freemen, threats are impotent.[Lat., Nulla enim minantis auctoritas apud liberos est.]”

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.”

“Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.”

“No wise man ever thought that a traitor should be trusted.”

“No obligation to do the impossible is binding.”

“Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.”

“The memory of past troubles is pleasant.[Lat., Jucunda memoria est praeteritorum malorum.]”

“How much in love with himself, and that too without a rival!”

“The foundations of justice are that on one shall suffer wrong; then, that the public good be promoted.”